Liberty Or Safety

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Benjamin Franklin once said: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve Liberty or Safety. H. L. Mencken, a well-known American essayist and social critic, believes man does not want to be free just safe. His claim extends to those who believe their compatriots are threat to their interests and person. Ever since political leaders took control of our nation they have passed laws that claim to protect us from the unknown enemy. The principles of liberty and freedom have been manipulated in order to restrain individuals from exercising their rights in order to maintain a social stability by not allowing an interexchange of ideas and practices. For example, in 2016 the United Kingdom parliament passed what is consider “The most extreme surveillance law in the history …show more content…
Media has become an important catalyzer for the spread of this kind of situations. Citizens are willing to give away their right to free expression and speech in order to restrain those same rights from other citizens and allow regulations and government interventions in social affairs. Media implants the seed of fear in this citizens and makes them believe freedom is irrelevant if there is someone else who is willing to hurt them. For example, in the late 1900s, The United States fought Spain in what is known as the “Journals War” this war was derived from the practice of yellow journalism by newspapers writers like Joseph Pulitzer. The sensational stories created by this media source about the conditions Cuba citizens lived in awake negative sentiments towards Spain. Spain was seeing as a monster and its behavior was depicted as exaggeratedly bad. The media provoked a fear among United States citizens after the USS Maine was sunk and provided the government with strong support to eradicate the

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